Demons.  Frank Peretti.  Stephen King.  The Incarnation.  What is the role of literature in the life of a Christian?  Over the years, I have heard many Christians dismiss fiction as an unnecessary part of the Christian life.  Even many pastors I know typically treat history and biography as the ‘important’ things to read, but fiction is a distant third or fourth, if it has any place at all.  In this episode, Justin Lee and I take a deeper dive into the subject of Christians (particularly evangelical Christians) and literature.  Why have evangelicals historically struggled to see literature as an essential part of a deep Christian life?  Justin and I attempt to describe what good fiction aims to do, what bad fiction often does, and why evangelicals have had little patience with the good stuff.  SO BEGINS THE READING REVOLUTION!

Here is a short list of some brilliant fiction to get you started if you haven’t tackled these already:

-The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

-The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

-Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

-Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

-Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

-The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

-A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’ Connor